Ben Volavola can't wait to start learning from 'greatest player of all time'
Ben Volavola has welcomed Dan Carter’s return to Racing 92, even though the re-signing of the legendary All Black will likely see the Fijian out-half slip down the pecking order at the French Top 14 club.
Despite playing a massive part in his counrty’s shock November win over France at the Stade de France, Volavola, who signed from Bordeaux last summer, has played second fiddle all season at Racing to Finn Russell, the Scotland international brought in to replace Carter.
While he has featured in 17 matches, a dozen in the Top 14, Volavola has accumulated a mere 453 on-pitch minutes and has started on just three occasions.
The arrival of Carter from Japan ahead of the business end of the season is set to further restrict Volavola’s opportunity at getting a lasting look-in, but the 28-year-old is is viewing the arrival of the New Zealander as an opportunity to learn as much as he can from the household name in the next few months.
“I admired Dan Carter throughout my childhood,” said Volavola in the weekend edition of French rugby newspaper Midi Olympique. “He is the greatest player of all time and in Fiji, if we support our national team first, the one that comes right behind is the All Blacks.
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“When I was little, I tried in my garden to copy his shot at goals and this technique still follows me today. I have a lot to learn from a player like him.”
Only in his second season in France following a career that had seen the Sydney-born Fijian play Super Rugby for Waratahs, Crusaders and Rebels, Volavola used his French media interview as a window to introduce himself to that country’s wider rugby public.
Excited to be joining my Ciel et Blanc brothers for the remainder of the Top 14 Season in France. I’m coming back mid season as a Medical Joker. It was very sad to hear about @PatLambie’s… https://t.co/Ari5ZyB9Gm
— Dan Carter (@DanCarter) February 18, 2019
“My name, Volavola, means ‘to write’ in Fijian. I was born in Sydney before leaving Australia as a one-year-old with my mother. We moved to Fiji until I was eight. Then we went back to Sydney where I started rugby. In fact, my two parents are Fijians, but I have a strong Indian heritage on my father’s side. I am a half-blood, like many of my compatriots!
“I really knew that I wanted to become a professional rugby player in Manly, a suburb of Sydney. There, I played for example with Michael Hooper, the Wallabies flanker. Then I was recruited by the Waratahs: I stayed there three years and we even won the Super Rugby in 2014.
That time @BenVolavola and @nemani_nadolo combined to score this beauty for @fijirugby at #RWC2015 pic.twitter.com/vtZ2E2rv7Q
— Rugby World Cup (@rugbyworldcup) August 21, 2018
“I spent a year at the Crusaders. When I got there, Dan Carter had just joined Racing. Then there were the Rebels and North Harbour, New Zealand. I have a lot of bad luck. Then Bordeaux recruited me.
“I didn’t succeed what I wanted to accomplish with them. I wasn’t good enough and the club decided to release me before the end of my contract. It was then that Racing extended my hand.”
Volavola’s career as a professional rugby player makes him celebrity in his own right. However, in the past two years he has got to know what the celebrity status is like in the movie world as he has been dating American actress Shailene Woodley.
“In Fiji two years ago I was competing in the Pacific Nations Cup and she was filming the film Adrift. Filming continued in New Zealand. It was fine, I was playing at the time for North Harbour, so we continued to see each other and now we live together in Paris. I’m blessed to have met a girl like her.
Love can weather any storm. Shailene Woodley and Sam Claflin star in #AdriftMovie – Available now on Digital HD, on Blu-ray & DVD. https://t.co/wvXt6cyD2Z pic.twitter.com/sQXYLLOr7b
— Adrift Movie (@AdriftMovie) September 7, 2018
“Before me, she had never watched sports on TV. Since then, she has started to learn the rules of rugby. She even comes to see us at the Arena,” he said, admitting he imagines his own acting skills would leave much to be desired.
“I’m a real catastrophe… I’m already very bad when I’m interviewed on camera to talk about my sport, so I don’t even imagine what it would be if I was asked to play someone other than me.”
Comments on RugbyPass
We’re building a bridge but can't agree where the river is.
2 Go to commentsfirst no arms shoulder or helmet tackle into his rib cage is going to be so very painful even to watch. go back to RU mate.
1 Go to commentsBulls by 5. Plus another 50.
3 Go to commentsJohan Goosen avatar. Cute. Surely someone at RP knows how to do a google image search?
3 Go to commentsCan’t these games play a little earlier? Asking for a friend.
3 Go to commentsIt’s impressive that we can see huge stadiums with attendance in the 40 000 to 50 000 region. It shows how popular this competition is becoming. What is even more impressive is the massive growth in broadcast viewership. The URC is one of the two best leagues in the World, the other being the Top14.
7 Go to commentsChristie is not Sottish, like the majority of the Scotland team.
2 Go to commentsHold the phone, decline over-rated. Is it a one game, dead cat bounce or the real thing? Has the Penney dropped? Stay tuned.
45 Go to commentsTotally deserved win for the Crusaders Far smarter than the Chiefs who seem to be avoiding the basics when it matters Hotham showed them what was missing and Hannah seems a real find - a tad light but that can be fixed over time
8 Go to commentsGreat insight into the performance culture with Sarries and I predict Christie will be a fixture in the Scotland team now for some time to come. However, he is slightly missing his own point around Scotland “being soft” when he cites physicality examples in defence of that slight. The issue is much closer to the example he referenced around feeling off before a game but being told “it doesn’t matter, you can still play well” by Farrell. Until Scotland can get their psyche in that square, they will carry on folding under extreme pressure…
2 Go to comments> We are having to adapt, evolve and innovate more than when we were in Super Rugby where there was only really one style that everybody had to play to gain the most success. Have = able to? Interesting what that one style might be? I thought SA sides still had bad tours now, or at least bad schedule, months away? Those extra few hours flights have to be a killer though, no surprise to see their sides doing so badly at the start of the season each year. I wouldn’t enjoy that unfairness as a supporter.
7 Go to commentsThe problem for NZ, and Aus, is they ripped up the SR model and lost a massive chunk of revenue that hasn’t been replaced. Don’t forget SA clubs went North because they were left with no choice, Argy unceremoniously binned and Japan cast adrift. Now SR wasn’t perfect, far from it, but they’ve jumped into something without an effective plan, so far, to replace what they’ve lost. The biggest revenue potential now lies in Japan but it won’t be easy or quick to unlock, they are incredibly insular in culture as a nation. In the meantime, there is a serious time bomb sitting under SH rugby and if it happens then the current financial challenges will look like a picnic. IF the Boks follow their provincial teams and head north then it’s revenue meltdown. Not guaranteed to happen but the status quo is a very odd hybrid, with the Boks pointing one way and the clubs pointing the other way. And for as long as that remains then the threat is real.
45 Go to commentsI think Etene has had some good tuition, likely while at the Warriors to be a professional that helped his rugby jump, but he was certainly thrown in the deep end way too early. Should have arguably 20 less SR caps, and therefor a way better record that he does at his age, but his development would have been fast tracked by the need to satiate his signing away from league. Again, credit to him and others that he has done it so well. Easy to fall over under that pressure in the big leagues like that but he kept at it when I myself wasn’t sure he was good enough.
1 Go to commentsAwesome story. I wonder what a bigger American (SA) scene might have mean for Brex.
1 Go to comments“Johnny McNicholl and the Crusaders” save a Penney. Who has been in camp this week and showed them how to play?
8 Go to commentsSo, reports of the Crusaders’ demise / terminal decline are perhaps just - slightly - premature/exaggerated…? 🤔 Will we see a deep-dive into that by the estimable Rugbypass scribes, and maybe one or two mea culpas? Thought not.
8 Go to comments1. The Chiefs are rudderless without DMac, which enhances his AB chances 2. Chiefs pack are powderpuffs. The hard men arent there anymore 3. They had their golden title chance last yr and wont threaten this yr. Gone in second round of playoffs.
8 Go to commentsHonestly, why did you have to publish such a foolish article the day they play us? 😂
45 Go to comments> They are not standalone entities. They are linked to an amateur association which holds the FFR licence that allows the professional side to compete in the league. That’s a great rule. This looks like the chicken or egg professional scenario. How long is it going to be before the club can break even (if that is even a thing in French rugby)? If the locals aren’t into well it would be good to se them drop to amateur level (is it that far?). Hope they can reset from this level and be more practical, there will be a time when they can rebuild (if France has there setup right).
1 Go to commentsWhat about changing the ball? To something heavier and more pointed that bounces unpredictably. Not this almost round football used these days.
35 Go to comments